Adidas America Inc. will provide shoes for the Notre Dame football team and shoes and clothing for most of the Irish's other 26 varsity teams under a five-year marketing agreement. Champion retains the exclusive apparel agreement with the Notre Dame football team. Neither side would reveal financial details of the deal. Adidas also confirmed it had signed a five-year deal to outfit the University of Tennessee. Notre Dame issued a request for proposals in December.

Dressed to the nines like the diplomat he was one spring day in 1995, Michael Wadsworth made members of the Joyce Center audience feel as if they were heads of state. It was Wadsworth's first public speech as the newly named athletic director at Notre Dame, and he connected with the locals like the corner bartender. At a fundraiser for a local center for people with disabilities, Wadsworth shared the tale of his sister, who was handicapped, and it resonated with the volunteers in the crowd.

For the Wadsworth family, it is going to be a happy Thanksgiving indeed. Mike Wadsworth, who served as Notre Dame's athletic director from 1995 through 2000, underwent a successful kidney transplant Monday at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. His donor? His wife, Bernie, who beat million-to-one odds in proving a successful match for her husband. Wadsworth has lived most of his life with one kidney, the other's development stalled by a childhood ailment. Bernie Wadsworth is expected to leave the hospital...

When Mike Wadsworth arrived at Notre Dame as a freshman football player in 1962, he recalled "all of the talk was about how Notre Dame's prowess as a football power was over." By the time he had left four years later, Wadsworth had come within a last-minute, season-ending loss at USC of a national championship as part of coach Ara Parseghian's inaugural 1964 squad. And although the 412 Irish alumni who signed a letter demanding changes in athletic policy that was sent to the...

Without shedding a tear or expressing bitterness, Lou Holtz bade farewell to Notre Dame Friday night at the 77th annual football banquet. "I have nothing but great memories," he said. But it's obvious they weren't all great. Holtz, who finished his 11 years at Notre Dame with a record of 100-30-2, expressed disappointment over how his career ended, with last Saturday's 27-20 overtime loss to Southern California. "When that USC game was coming to an end,"...

For the Wadsworth family, it is going to be a happy Thanksgiving indeed. Mike Wadsworth, who served as Notre Dame's athletic director from 1995 through 2000, underwent a successful kidney transplant Monday at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. His donor? His wife, Bernie, who beat million-to-one odds in proving a successful match for her husband. Wadsworth has lived most of his life with one kidney, the other's development stalled by a childhood ailment. Bernie Wadsworth is expected to leave the hospital...

In an uncharacteristically public difference of opinion, Notre Dame officials said no Michigan representative has contacted them about their decision to add a game to their football schedule. Notre Dame coach Bob Davie defended his program Tuesday in a statement considered as direct as any in the three seasons since he succeeded Lou Holtz. Davie's brief but pointed defense, in response to a question, made his stance more relevant than the oral darts of a less respectful high-profile...

After digesting the hysterical reactions to the undefeated but tarnished reign of George O'Leary as Notre Dame football coach, I must confess to being among the morally deprived minority. That is, I don't think the man should be hanged, or that the university deserves to flogged, quarantined or closed until further notice. Obviously, O'Leary caused himself and the Fighting Irish undue stress by declaring on an ancient resume that he lettered at New Hampshire and earned a master's degree from...

I read with great interest Teddy Greenstein's article about Notre Dame's postseason bowl chances after the team's recent loss to Air Force (Sports. Oct. 21). As in the past, it's interesting to see that a team's chance of landing a bowl berth in many instances depends more upon the wealth of its alumni and its ability to garner television ratings than on what the players accomplish on the field. I have to wonder what message we are sending to the young players when they accomplish everything they set out to...

For a university that spends so much time living in the past, Notre Dame sure has a memory-loss problem. The school suddenly has forgotten its standards. This is the same Notre Dame that rejected Rick Majerus for failing to fit its image of what a coach should be. Any college basketball coach who doesn't own a necktie is a subversive, after all. George O'Leary was the 73rd choice on Notre Dame's list of candidates for its football-coaching job. His name came right after the...

Notre Dame wants to do it. Indiana is all for it. And Bob Casciola, president of the National Football Foundation, probably would saw off his right arm to make it happen. So what's preventing a College Football Hall of Fame game from becoming a reality? Everyone's favorite punching bag, the NCAA. It's no secret the Hall, which relocated to South Bend in 1995, is desperate for an infusion of money and exposure. That's why organizers are pushing for a game that would be...

With his square jaw, his perfectly groomed salt-and-pepper hair, his intense hazel eyes and his precisely creased suits, Notre Dame coach Matt Doherty has the retro elegance of a 1930s comic-book superhero--a star with a common touch, one who deflects praise with a doff of his proverbial hat. And that may be fitting, given the herculean feat Doherty has performed in restoring pride to a basketball team whose glory had in the last decade dulled...

So who would want this job? With the departure of Mike Wadsworth expected sometime this year, a Notre Dame search committee headed by Rev. Edward A. Malloy will select a candidate to lead the Fighting Irish back to prominence (hellip) and, by the way, avoid the NCAA death penalty for repeat offenders. Two people familiar with the circumstances surrounding the restructuring announced Monday by Malloy, the university president, maintained Notre Dame almost certainly will go outside...

The Joyce Center was beginning to feel the way it did in the old days, when in the warmth of autumn or the windchill of winter, Notre Dame consistently established its athletic superiority. There was a basketball luncheon Friday in an area adjacent to the arena where a sellout crowd of 11,418 would gather Saturday for the Irish's second victory this season against defending national champion Connecticut, 68-66. Matt Doherty, the first-year coach of the Fighting Irish, spoke of...

For a university that spends so much time living in the past, Notre Dame sure has a memory-loss problem. The school suddenly has forgotten its standards. This is the same Notre Dame that rejected Rick Majerus for failing to fit its image of what a coach should be. Any college basketball coach who doesn't own a necktie is a subversive, after all. George O'Leary was the 73rd choice on Notre Dame's list of candidates for its football-coaching job. His name came right after the...

The mutual decision was made before the meeting began. That was the reality Mike Wadsworth described Tuesday, the day after his regretful resignation marked the official beginning of the end of a nearly five-year tenure as Notre Dame athletic director. The day after the Rev. Edward A. Malloy revealed an agreed-upon departure as part of a dramatically restructured athletic leadership, Wadsworth diplomatically offered a conflicting interpretation. "If I had my druthers," he said...

Mike Wadsworth likes what he sees from Notre Dame this year, and wants Lou Holtz back as head coach next season; but after that there are no firm commitments. Wadsworth, in his first year as Irish athletic director, said he is pleased with the way the 1995 team has responded to adversity this season, including the upheaval surrounding Holtz's surgery. He directly credits Holtz and his staff for turning the team around from last year's lethargy. Many thought the team just played out...

So who would want this job? With the departure of Mike Wadsworth expected sometime this year, a Notre Dame search committee headed by Rev. Edward A. Malloy will select a candidate to lead the Fighting Irish back to prominence (hellip) and, by the way, avoid the NCAA death penalty for repeat offenders. Two people familiar with the circumstances surrounding the restructuring announced Monday by Malloy, the university president, maintained Notre Dame almost certainly will go outside...

When Mike Wadsworth arrived at Notre Dame as a freshman football player in 1962, he recalled "all of the talk was about how Notre Dame's prowess as a football power was over." By the time he had left four years later, Wadsworth had come within a last-minute, season-ending loss at USC of a national championship as part of coach Ara Parseghian's inaugural 1964 squad. And although the 412 Irish alumni who signed a letter demanding changes in athletic policy that was sent to the...

In an uncharacteristically public difference of opinion, Notre Dame officials said no Michigan representative has contacted them about their decision to add a game to their football schedule. Notre Dame coach Bob Davie defended his program Tuesday in a statement considered as direct as any in the three seasons since he succeeded Lou Holtz. Davie's brief but pointed defense, in response to a question, made his stance more relevant than the oral darts of a less respectful high-profile...